Archive for July, 2010

Hello sirs and madams. I wanted to share this happy experience with all of you so here we go. I went to this modern retail outlet in Bhubaneswar one day and was so happy to see the famous Starbucks coffee placed at my eye level on one of the shelves. I thought wow; these guys are penetrating into the Indian subcontinent. So, I picked up one of these bottles and alas, my gaze was stuck at the Rs 160 odd price tag. Waaat sir?

Are you selling coffee or are you paying our monthly’s phone bill? This is India sir. Sell it cheap if you want to sell at all. If you are targeting the bade babus then you are limiting your scope sir. You need to learn from HUL, Volkswagen, P&G, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nokia and the likes. You are smart sir but show us that you are smart. You know HUL’s fifty percent of the revenues come from the rural segment now. The future is there sir. Atleast in India. Use other companies’ experience why do you want to experience what other companies have experienced by not modifying their Indian offerings? Middle class sir, I am telling you that should be your target.

Sorry folks, back to the experience. So while I was thinking all this I realized that I still had the glass bottle in my hand. Fish! What if it falls. 160 gone down the drain! 😛 I carefully kept the bottle back and didn’t give much thought to how I would spend the money that I just saved. There was a tavern closeby. 2 kingfishers sirs and madams and I was happy. 😀 😀